The Definitive How-To Guide For Conversion Rate&nbspOptimization

This post was promoted from YouMoz. The author’s views are entirely his or her own (excluding an unlikely case of hypnosis) and may not reflect the views of Moz.

Let's start by asking one of the most important questions in conversion rate optimization (CRO):

A good question.

In this article, you’ll get:

A clear and defined process for CRO

Checklists to print and check off as you go

I’ll share the same processes that I use to consistently boost my clients’ conversion rates – sometimes even doubling or tripling them. (I specialize in industries like finance, gaming, travel and weightloss, where even a 5% increase in conversion rate can generate millions of dollars.)

This is the article I wish I could have read when starting out.

Conversion Rate Optimization - setting the record straight

If you only remember one thing from this article, make sure this is it.

Conversion rate optimization is…

Finding out why visitors aren’t converting

Fixing it

That's it.

It sounds obvious, but a lot of people forget it – and they leave a ton of money on the table as a result.

Conversion rate optimization isn't…

Split-testing the colour of your buttons (unless you really want to)

Following best-practice and guesswork

Based on misleading metrics

Let's look at the first point:

Don't split-test the colour of your buttons (unless you really want to)The more people talk about CRO, the more you hear bizarre recommendations on the colour of your buttons and headlines, the alignment of form labels, and so on.

This is one real-life example:

"Making your headline red will increase your conversion rate 30%."

Let's rephrase the statement, using the definition of CRO above:

"I think that visitors aren't converting because our headline is black rather than red."

We need to start by finding out why visitors aren’t converting – then fix it.

The trouble is that statements like “green buttons convert better than red ones” and “short forms are better than long forms” are appealing, and quickly become considered “best practice”…

Don't follow best-practice and guessworkIt sounds counterintuitive to say "don't follow best practice" (especially in an article actually giving advice). To put it another way, don’t assume that just because it worked for someone else means it’ll work for you.

It's natural that we'll look for silver bullets – in fact, it's good to look for ways to get bigger wins quicker – but this kind of testing doesn't fit with a successful conversion rate optimization strategy.

Conversion rates are hugely personal to your website – what works on someone else's website will only work on yours if you have similar objections. You've got to find out what’s wrong with your site – not what worked on someone else’s.

Don't worry about misleading metricsFocus on the money. So don't worry too much about microconversions or other metrics. (The only reason people boast about increasing their "add to basket" conversion rate is often because they didn’t increase their overall conversion rate.)

Focus on the money and the conversion rate that’s directly linked to revenue.

Why CRO matters

Ok, let's start with the easy one:

1. Make more money

But wait... there's more! When you increase your conversion rate, it also means you can…

2. Increase advertising spend

After all, when your conversion rate increases, then PPC, affiliate marketing and other advertising will suddenly become much more profitable. And when you do that, you can…

3. Increase market share

The more you increase your conversion rate, the more traffic you can buy, the more customers you get, the more repeat business you get... You'll rapidly increase your market share. And it all starts with your conversion rate.

Conversion Rate Optimization – step-by-step

Stage one: research and analysis

Become the customerThis is a massively important step – and one that most people skip. Don’t be that person.

Buy the product or service. And when you’re buying it, take screenshots and/or use Camtasia or similar to record yourself buying it. (It's incredible how many people haven't bought a product or service from their own site.)

Increasing sales starts with understanding what you’re selling, so when you’ve bought the product or service, use it as a customer would. Test it, take it apart and put it back together – even demonstrate it to others as a salesperson would.

Set up funnels in Google AnalyticsMost companies haven’t even set up goals and funnels in Google Analytics (and if they have, they stopped working properly months ago). When they’re set up right, they’ll quickly show you where you’re losing traffic and where the biggest opportunities are.

Use other analytics packagesOther analytics packages are great at showing you what’s happening on your website.

Crazy Egg will generate heatmaps of your website, showing you which areas are getting the most clicks. Yes, Google Analytics does heatmaps too – but not like Crazy Egg. They’ll even show you clicks on inactive elements – the things people are clicking on that aren’t actually links. Often this will reveal areas the visitors want more information on. It can be a great source of quick wins.

Crazy Egg – Look for clicks on inactive elements, as they can be a great source of quick wins.

ClickTale is several tools wrapped into one. It’ll give you heatmaps showing how far down your pages visitors are scrolling (perfect for your long spammy weightloss page). It can even record videos of your visitors’ sessions (which will help you get in the habit of looking at your site through someone else’s eyes). And finally, it has brilliant form analytics – you’ll see exactly which questions in your form are causing visitors to abandon the page.

ClickTale gives you access to a huge amount of data – including how far down the page visitors will scroll.

Do five usability testsWith several cheap usability testing companies available, there’s no excuse not to be doing it anymore. It’s one of the most profitable activities you can do. With sites like UserTesting.com (US and UK) and whatusersdo.com (UK), you’ll pay around $40 for a 15-minute usability test. At the end, you’ll get the video of their session, plus the voiceover as they navigate your site.

With sites like UserTesting.com and whatusersdo.com offering quick and cheap usability tests…

…there are no excuses not to do any.

Remember, don’t make your brief too prescriptive. You want the tester to use the site as they would if they weren’t doing a test – don’t make them follow orders. (You can even set them the same task on a competitor’s site to see what the competition is doing right/wrong.)

Survey your customersBy this stage, we should be building a good list of reasons why visitors aren’t converting – whether they’re usability issues (can’t buy) or objections (won’t buy).

We’ll gather more data on this with surveys. It doesn’t really matter how you survey your customers – so long as you do it.

You can create a survey with SurveyMonkey and email it to your customers and non-customers (but make sure to use free-text answers rather than multiple choice – we want the customers to tell us in their own words, not to pick the closest reason from a list). Or use a tool like Kampyle to gather feedback directly on your site. Or just pick up the phone and speak to them.

Talk to sales staffYour website is the online equivalent of your best salesperson. So… find that salesperson and ask them to sell the product or service to you. (If you’ve got a Flip camcorder, use that to film it.) Find out what questions and objections the customers ask and – more importantly – find out what the answers are.

Flip camcorders – Keep one of these handy when speaking with sales and support staff.

Stage two: solutions

Create a list of all the objections + issuesTicked everything off in stage one? Good. If not, make sure you complete it soon (seriously – if you don’t, you’re leaving money on the table.)

When you’ve got all the data, start a spreadsheet with a list of all the usability issues (can’t buy) on one tab, and the objections (won’t buy) on another. Highlight the ones that come up most often, or that you think can have a big impact.

Brainstorm ways to overcome themNext, brainstorm ways to solve the usability issues and objections. Put the possible solutions into the second columns of your spreadsheet.

Look for hidden opportunitiesRemember, it’s important to be creative with the solutions. Here are a couple of examples:

If you’ve got a low conversion rate on a form, do you even need the form in the first place? Take a look at posterous.com – a great example of removing the sign-up process altogether.

Posterous.com – “Look Ma – no sign-up!”

If you have to keep your sign-up process, but people are abandoning it, how do you fix it? Lovefilm.com are great at conversion. If you abandon their sign-up form, on your next visit, they’ll redirect you back to where you left off – even if you type in their homepage URL. (Abandon their sign-up form and you’ll see how.)

Lovefilm.com – “Haven’t I been here before…?”

It’s creativity like this which will boost your conversion rate. If you do the same as everyone else, your conversion rate will be the same too.

Prioritise the actions (aim for quick results and maximum improvement)So now we’ve got the objections, the issues and the possible solutions. Next we need to tackle them in the right order. There’s an opportunity cost, so we want to start – not with the quick wins – but the quick and big wins.

Go through the list with your developers. Mark the ones that can be developed and tested quickly and easily. If they match up with the ones you highlighted above (that can have a big impact), you’ll know where to start.

Stage three: development and testing

Develop the variations and take screenshotsNow the fun part. Start developing the variations. Don’t be tempted to test too many things in each variation – you won’t know what’s increasing the conversion rate and what’s lowering it. Be scientific in your testing and you’ll get bigger wins quicker.

When the variations have been developed, make sure you take screenshots of them. We need to keep records of everything we’re testing. It’s easy to get 20 tests into a campaign and forget what you tested at the start. Be like Travis Bickle: “One of these days I'm gonna get organezized”.

Today is that day.

Set up Crazy Egg on variationsDon’t forget your analytics when you’re testing. Crazy Egg is a staple in my testing diet. If the Crazy Egg code is in your footer, it’ll be on the new variations automatically (as long as it’s an A/B test, not a multivariate test). Just set up a test at CrazyEgg.com and you’ll get a heatmap for the new page. Compare the two and you’ll have a clearer insight why one page is converting higher than another.

Test using Google Website Optimizer or other testing softwareGoogle Website Optimizer is fairly powerful, fairly easy-to-use and – best of all – completely free. No excuses.

Google Website Optimizer – the price is right.

Now let me qualify those statements. It’s fairly powerful out-of-the-box, but you may want to hack it to do things like testing multiple goals. It’s fairly easy to use – especially if you’ve got a good developer – but there are alternatives that are easier.

For a detailed guide to testing software, take a look at whichmvt.com.

Stage four: review and expand

Log the results and screenshotsWhen the test has finished, log the results and store them with your screenshots of the variations. As we repeat this process, we’ll build up a folder of what works and what doesn’t. This is crucial.

Analyse the results (big losses are just as important as big wins)Big wins are awesome. Big losses can be interesting too – just flip it around. So rather than saying, “Page B lowered the conversion rate by x%”, you should say, “Something about Page A effectively increased the conversion rate by y% over Page B.”

Then all we need to do is find what that something is. Take a look at your Crazy Egg screenshots and review your list of objections and usability issues.

If you got a win, can it be developed further?The first question after getting a win is, “How can we develop this?” So if you added a testimonial to your landing page, what would happen if you added five more? Take the winning element to extremes and see how big a win you can get.

If you got a win, can it be applied to other parts of the funnel?The second question is, “How can we apply this elsewhere?” Take the principle that increased the conversion rate – adding trust, emphasising a particular benefit, introducing a guarantee – and work out how you can apply it to other parts of the funnel.

These two questions together can magnify increases to the conversion rate several times over.

Stage five: repeat

As you can see, the process works in a cycle. The insight you get after completing a test will feed into the top – giving you ideas for other tests to try.

This is Conversion Factory's approach to conversion rate optimization.

After a few rounds of testing, repeat all or part of stage one (research and analysis). Do the usability testers still struggle with the same things? Are potential customers still uncertain about the benefits of your product? Either way, you’ll get fresh ideas for CRO.

Wow! This is huge... and is going to be one of the most linked to, tweeted & retweteed, liked, sphinned, stumbled, save as fav, delicioused post... I'm almost sure. For sure I saved it in my favs and tweeted. It's really a great guide, Stephen.

EDIT: Mmm... when all you readers are going to comment and add your experienced point of view?

Do you think that SEO is going to merge in the future (soon) with CRO somehow? Wouldn't it be on of the best web marketing marriage?

I'm not so sure that on business organization level CRO has always been part of SEO.

CRO was always a variation of Usability and Accessibility. In the early 2000 it was also defined as "Semiotic Web Design" from some specialist in Europe. So... something more of a Web Marketing Agency more on the Design side.

I see CRO getting mainstream closer to SEO just from a couple of year... and IMHO many agency, especially small ones, still not include it as a service.

Actually CRO has always been there in some form or the other. But now it has got its own name and the dedicated focus it deserves. CRO is only going to evolve in the future and split into super specialized fields like 'product and market optimization'. Upto now we focus mainly on usability, accessibility and users engagement issues but tend to ignore the product itself. If the product itself is a crap or is not appealing or desirable, then no amount of usability tests, a/b or multivarite tests are going to help with conversions. CRO is much more marketing oriented than SEO and that's why not every seo agency can provide such services.

I understand your point of view... but - maybe because I come from a marketing past - I see SEO as the center of a wider category whose alchemic formula to be found should be to optimize the website 'expierence' both for Serps and Users with the final objective of ROI.

Following my logic, SEO has much to do with marketing.

And when I was meaning SEO + CRO = perfect marriage, is because the final objective of both is ROI.

That's why I believe that any SEO agency should have to offers both as an unique... and this is not so different than SEO + Analylitcs services

To summarize:

both specialties look at the same objective (ROI) and both as just to take advantage from a common strategy. Therefore both should be planned together whenever its possible.

i agree with you. Ideally every seo agency should offer both SEO and CRO services. But then there is a difference between 'should' and 'can'. Since you have marketing background (just like i have studied marketing), you may probably have realized it by now that deeper you will go into seo more you will find it closer to marketing. But what about those guys who don't have marketing background or who have not studied marketing. How they can talk about 'brand' when they dont know what is brand. How they can talk about 'brand image', 'market value', 'USP', product life cycle', 'market segmentation', SWOT analysis of business and website etc when they are not familar with these terms in the first place. And even just knowing these terms is not good enough. One needs to understand how they work together. For e.g. anybody can learn about marketing mix through wikipedia or other sources. No big deal. But implementing them is altogether a different story. What i am trying to say here is that SEO is just one subset of marketing just like advertising, comminications and sales and it is not the other way round. One can manage only those things which can be measured and above all understood in the first place.

Agree with you in general terms, even if seems to apply more on a single-consultant-man agency.

On the other hand, what you say can be seen from the other point of view (coding and hard coding when in need to create enbeddable widgets for link building purpose).

As if in that case someone can always hire proved experienced freelance, in CRO case you can always start a commercial relationship with CRO only agencies.

Or, in case of small agencies, rethink the internal business plan in order to implement a couple of CRO specialists.

I agree that noone can learn marketing from Wikipedia, but everybody can learn with practice, experience and experiments and learning from the 'masters jedi'. Even if is not going to deal actually with CRO (or Code or Analytics), he has the duty to have a perennial student-state-of-mind in order to survive.

SEO is a branch of internet marketing and people who want to offer SEO services or want to run SEO companies should not only have knowledge of real time marketing and should be familiar with concepts of brand image, market value, SWOT analysis, USP etc but also should have a fair idea about web design and developement.

In the long run calculating the ROI for an SEO campaign is one of the main SEO Project deliverables.

CRO exercises and calculating the ROI in turn will surely also answer many questions on the reputation management and brand building of a company online.

In future only those companies who can offer all these services like SEO, CRO, Reputation Management and also help you build a brand image online by using social media effectively will be able to survive.

But, if you have a website which is doing well since a long time and the conversion rate is already high the best way is to leave it as it is and make hay while the sun shines. As too much analysis can cause paralysis.

Just because on particular tactic works for one site, doesn’t of course meant that it will automatically work elsewhere. Despite this, there is a still a lot that we can learn from studying top converting websites, not least because in many cases they break the so-called ‘rules’ by doing counter-intuitive things, and still achieving outstanding conversion rates.

Based on Nielsen panel data, this (free) report contrasts the 23% average visitor-to-sale conversion rate of the top 10 converting websites, with the industry average, currently at around 2% - 3%.

The conclusion you come to from reading the research is that while some tactics are important, just as critical are the business model. For example, four out of five of the top converting websites force a full registration before a first purchase, as does Amazon (#11 in the list). What these top converting companies do is to focus on customers: capturing their id’s, serving them well, remarketing to them using email and direct mail (9/10 have catalogs) to drive highly qualified traffic back to their sites.

For many people this is a ‘Duh’ moment.

Of course, if you drive large numbers of warm customers back to your site, it’s obvious that you’re going to increase your conversion rate. While this is beyond the scope of conversion rate optimization, it needs noting here that tuning the site is an important part of a much bigger process.

I hate it when companies (especially small ones) compare themselves to the Nielsen numbers. Some of those sites are a perfect storm of conversion, like online flower retailers - motivated buyers, easy-to-understand product, relatively low price point, etc. Personally, I also think those 20%+ conversion rates (I've seen as high as 40% on that Top 10 list) are highly dubious. Given how bad Nielsen's TV numbers have proven to be, I have no faith in their e-commerce numbers. Many studies show that only 20-30% of the typical site's audience are even in the market to buy AT ALL. In other words, if you converted 100% of your potential buyers, you'd still only have 20-30% conversion.

It's an interesting area. I would never recommend comparing your conversion rate to anyone else's - even a competitor's in the same industry. Like you say, your CR is so dependent on the qualification of the traffic that it makes comparisons almost meaningless.

Ultimately, the only CR you should compare against is your own.

Also, Charles' point above about focusing on customers is spot on. One of the most underlooked ways to increase your CR is to get your customers coming back for more.

One final point is that some companies are in a unique position, so techniques will work for them that won't for anyone else. Jared Spool has a great presentation on Amazon's unique position here: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1485179/highlight/2465

Awesome introduction to conversion rate optimization. I think this is just about the best intro I've read on the topic, and the only article I've seen that focuses on a strategic approach rather than just ideas for tactics.

I think a lot of people get the tactics, but struggle to work out how to turn that into an ongoing CRO strategy.

Nah Jen. You definitely fall into the category of people who know me. Being the queen of this domain you've had to wade through my usual plethora of remarks. I usually can't even get through a single reading of a post before I'm wading through the comments adding my two cents here and there.

But this post was so crammed with good advice and good practices, that it just sorta stunned me. My mind started thinking of the places I could use this, and where I should be using that.

This is definitely one of the best posts (for me) I've read this year, 'cuz although I'm a big believer in Conversion Optimization and Analytics, posts like this show me I'm not working it anywhere near what I should be.

This is really good Stephen More and more I find myself starting as SEO consultant on sites and finishing up doing this sort of work. There must be some quote starting "Ranking without conversion ..." Reading this I'm realising that there is a whole new service we can set up within our company. Based mainly on the realisation that each case is unique and needs testing and time.

Although I do think that there is more room for some "best practices" than you suggest here. But by type of site : e-commerce by sector, B2B lead generation, ...

What sign up rate did you get for your conversionfactory.com mailing list from this article? ;-)

This is one of those articles you have to read two, three, even four times to get all the information in it! There's just sooo much to learn it's amazing... Well said Stephen. I'll be honest, when I started reading it and read the line: "This is the article I wish I could have read when starting out." I was like okay, here we go, but it was worth it. Will be back to read more of it.

Thanks for a really concrete, actionable post. We have also found CrazyEgg to be an effective way to sanity-check new layouts, and both Google Analytics and MixPanel have been solid tools for evaluating any funnel improvements we make.

One tool that you missed though: live chat. I am definitely biased (since I'm with olark.com) but chat has been an awesome way to gather immediate customer feedback as they progress through the signup funnel. Helping a customer to the next step in your funnel reveals not just "where" the sticking points are, but also a very detailed "why"...since you are actually having a conversation with that customer.

This is an awesome article. I've been looking for a good introduction to Conversion Rate Optimization for awhile now, and I've hit gold. Absolutely fabulous post! I'll be reading this one over and over until I get the ideas and techniques presented in this blog post down!! Keep up the great work!

This is a great post Stephen, I'm a big fan of split testing and agree that it's important to test bold changes rather than just fiddle around with the fonts and colours.

Another tool that can help improve conversion rates is testimonial monkey (www.testimonialmonkey.com) as it can help companies to build trust by sharing the positive experiences of their existing and previous customers.

Thanks again for the article - I've printed off the check list & will start working my way through the 4 pages to make sure I don't miss any quick wins!

What a great post. Very informative and astonishing analysis. I like your style of making sure to get the right site conversion rate. I will surely follow all your conversion rate optimization tips and strategies provided here. Many thanks! Keep it up...

"Don't worry about misleading metrics Focus on the money. So don't worry too much about microconversions or other metrics. (The only reason people boast about increasing their "add to basket" conversion rate is often because they didn’t increase their overall conversion rate.)"

CRO is so important and is part of the bigger business issues of getting your business model, pricing, messaging, and sales processes right through testing and improvement. You have to get these issues addressed well, otherwise driving all the traffic in the world won't make much difference.

I'm especially big on the whole User Testing part, and one tool that can be really handy for those a little reluctant to do UT (or are cheap like me) is Feedback Army: it's more like a user feedback questionnaire, but its super helpful and really great at finding the big "show stoppers" (via Dr Pete)

Helped us find a few show stoppers (like how people couldn't find a way to get home, so we added a "home" button, and that was that!) and were still using it as we make more design changes!

This is fantastic because it isn't overwhelming.
A lot of organizations probably shy away from CRO because it is portrayed as a huge, complex process that's reserved for sites where every other effort has been maxed out - that isn't the case.
CRO can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be, and it should be a part of everyones' process (from dedicated CRO professionals to SEOs.) You have really captured that here!

So when I found this how-to guide and I saw how long the page was, I thought, "Oh wow! Have I got a lot to read..." Come to find out, it's more the result of comments.

I have to agree with "mjpizz" - the online chat function has been a very fruitful way to engage the potential customer to further inspect, browse, shop, explore your website. I, myself have found this function to be very helpful (granted, when it is wanted) because most people do not want to pick up the phone anymore. They want instant gratification, and the internet provides exactly that!

Like the article, making sure the title/heading is the right font, color and size is essential to attracting new website visitors. The trick is knowing what you're doing when engaging in SEO ;)

Definitely a great article. I'm a big fan of the heat maps and have used them myself to find out where people are spending the most time on my landing pages. I wrote an article on some similar practical things you can do specifically for increasing leads http://www.marketinginjection.com/top-10-tips-to-increase-leads-from-your-website/

CRO is of great benefit to any website. However, CRO isn't merely changing the color of a button here and there, but rather, it's maximizing your business objectives. CRO is really about maximizing your market share, presenting your website in the light and manner you want it to be seen, reducing customer acquisition costs. Put simply, you can't simple just focus on your conversion rate. CRO is a holisitic, as well as technical process.

Great article. Using such quick tips can act as a useful starting point. But it's useful to be mindful of the fact that your conversion issues relate heavily to your industry and it's stage in the market cycle. Lower risk businesses typically have higher conversion rates. Higher risk businesses have lower conversion rates since a greater level of trust is required.

Great post!Still valid after almost 3 years.Well, Google Website Optimizer is now Content Experiments, and Google Docs is a great tool for surveys too (can also be easily embedded in your website page layout).

Thanks for the great guide! Personally, I use Logaholic to monitor my conversion rates. It uses Log file analysis as main collection data method, which I think is more reliable than Javascript cookie tracking.

In this age of anonymous website visitors and analytic tools, it's easy to forget about good old fashioned people skills. Surveying the customers with Survey Monkey might generate a some data points, but actually having a chat can clear up a whole lot of conversion sticking points really fast.

It's tricky to talk to website visitors who didn't buy anything, but you could have a live chat popup box and pick their brains as they browse the site.

Better yet, use the phone and call past customers or anyone you know who might be willing to give you honest feedback on your marketing! You'd be amazed at some of the things they point out as problems!

Conversion is a combination of presenting the value that you offer clearly, and packaging it in a way that works for your audience. Having an amazing Web 2.0 website might appeal to certain users, but it might scare off another group... looking cool does not mean a cool amount of sales!

Oh... copying competitors isn't a great idea. It could be a case of the blind leading the blind!

Great guide! In the end there’s no point in getting traffic to your site and not converting this i why i came up with the idea to start up a company that offer a user testing service of screen recording and video playback of what users are actually doing when visiting your website. So you can see where any doubt or confusion comes with users. Have yous herd of Kupima? http://kupima.com

Great Great post. I now have access to some awesome testing resources.

It would also be interesting if we can have a metrics on the 'traffic qualification'. More often then not, many users bounce because they come to a site with a different intent and during the process they realize this is not they want.

There has to be a way that enables one to test a funnel only for qualified traffic. Coz we may want to save the 20% bounced users not knowing that they don't even qualify.

I'm ashamed to say I've never heard Tim speak. If you've got links to any of his presentations that you'd recommend, I'd love to see them.

The guide above is based on doing conversion rate optimisation day-in day-out for the last three years. It's good to see common ground between different people's approaches - it indicates that CRO is starting to mature as an industry and best practices are starting to emerge (better than the ones I mention above, that is).

Interesting, I'm finishing my first year in CRO, and my process looks a TON like yours. I actually built the process myself, from a combination of different resources: Conversion Rate Experts, Copy Hackers, Information Highway Man D. Bnonn, Gary Halbert and tons of other copywriting guys.

My process is evolving too, I'm starting to look for pages in analytics with the most traffic so I can speed up iteration between tests, I'm also seeking pages w/ high bounce rate and trying to deconstruct the thought sequence that's causing extis.

Finally I'm trying to get more involved in the community, I know a lot about CRO, but I always learn new stuff when I talk to other CRO's about their process. This is cool stuff, thanks for posting.

A tool I really like is KISSinsights. I ask this to discover objections: "Will you buy this product, if not, why not?"

Also a great survey questions to discover benefits is: "what job did you hire this product to do?"

And aslo to discover benefits: "Have you recommended this product to a friend? If so, how did you describe it?" ---- That gives me the exact language they used when talking to their friends, then , many times I'll copy and paste what they said - and stick that in the headline for a landing page and test it.

I can tune the message from there, but it's funny how I get the message that's most persuasuve to the market directly from the market itself.

...and a lot of Tim's stuff comes from Bryan Eisenberg, if you want to look at it that way. That doesn't mean anyone ripped anyone off - as a CRO-focused person myself, we all start to converge on the same conclusions over time. You see the same thing in SEO (more of it, actually).

Very Good post. A lot of web designers think that what they built is the ultimate and nothing can be better. A test is sometimes a good way to open their eyes. Every week I do the test on whichtestwon.com to see if I could have picked the winner. This is a humbling experience to say the least.

Don't forget that there's a lot more to conversion than what's on the page. It's hard to look at whichtestwon.com and pick the winner, as so much is dependent on what's motivating the visitor, and what's stopping them converting. You can only see so much on whichtestwon.com... Conversion is more than page deep ;)

Conversion rate optimization/landing page optimization should be a component of every SEO campaign. SEO isn't just about ranking higher in the search engines. Its making sure that your visitors convert! I'm glad this artlcle was included in SEOmoz.

As a marketer who has recently come to the end of a £7k per month contract with a large conversion rate optimistaion agency in London, I wish I'd read this first and done it myself. Where were you before I signed that contract last year...!?